Recently during a harassment prevention training I facilitated, a participant asked:
“Does intent matter when someone is accused of harassment?”
It’s a thoughtful question because it gets to something many people genuinely struggle to understand. Most of us want to believe our intentions should count for something. If we weren’t trying to offend someone, make them uncomfortable, or cross a line, shouldn’t that matter?
When we evaluate workplace harassment, intent does not override impact. Someone can create a hostile or unwelcome experience without ever intending to do so. That distinction is foundational to understanding harassment, but it’s also where the conversation usually changes.
“So what you’re saying is I can’t even compliment someone anymore?”
Someone will offer an example that feels harmless to them like noticing a colleague’s new outfit and telling them they looked nice. People are trying to understand where the line is, and they’re worried that the line has become so unclear that the safest option is to stop interacting with one another altogether.
I can understand why people feel that way.
Why So Many Leaders Feel Like They’re Walking on Eggshells
The modern workplace is more diverse than ever, and that’s particularly true in the nonprofit sector. We intentionally build teams made up of people with different identities, lived experiences, cultures, generations, and perspectives because those differences make us better equipped to serve equally diverse communities. The very thing that strengthens our organizations also means we can no longer assume everyone experiences our words, humor, or communication in the same way.
I’ve worked with supervisors who quietly admit they’re worried that something they say will be misunderstood. I know they aren’t trying to avoid accountability; they’re trying to avoid causing harm, but they’re not always confident they know how.
I have empathy for that concern because communication has become more complex:
- Generational differences shape how we interpret feedback
- Cultural backgrounds influence what feels respectful or intrusive
- Personal experiences affect how we receive comments that someone else might experience as perfectly ordinary
None of us walk into a conversation carrying only our own perspective, which is exactly why intent cannot be the only measure of whether harm occurred. The fact that harm wasn’t intended doesn’t necessarily make it any less real for the person who experienced it.
Harassment prevention training sometimes gets framed in ways that aren’t particularly helpful. The conversation becomes about what people are no longer “allowed” to say, which naturally creates defensiveness. I don’t believe the goal of harassment prevention is to make people afraid to speak. I believe it’s to help people become more intentional before they do.
The Most Important Pause You’ll Take
There’s an important difference between censorship and consideration:
- Censorship assumes someone is preventing you from saying something
- Consideration asks if what we’re about to say serves someone else as much as it serves us
Imagine you’re about to compliment a colleague’s outfit. Instead of asking yourself whether the comment could technically violate a policy, ask a different set of questions:
- What do you know about this person?
- Have you built the kind of relationship where that compliment would likely be welcomed?
- Could the comment make them feel appreciated, or would it make them feel uncomfortable?
- Is commenting on their appearance necessary in this moment, or is there another way to build connection that carries less risk of being unwelcome?
Sometimes you’ll still offer the compliment because the context, relationship, and circumstances all support it. Other times, you’ll decide not to. Neither decision is driven by fear. Both are driven by thoughtfulness.
We live in a culture that rewards immediacy. We respond to messages within seconds, fill quiet moments with conversation, and often speak as quickly as thoughts enter our minds because silence can feel awkward or unproductive. Yet some of the most effective leaders I’ve worked with are people who have learned to become comfortable with the pause between thinking and speaking. They don’t react to every moment. They create enough space to consider the people around them before deciding how they want to show up.
That pause might only last five seconds.
Five seconds to consider whether your words will build trust or unintentionally chip away at it.
Five seconds to ask yourself whether what you’re about to say reflects the kind of workplace you’re trying to help create.
Five seconds to remember that every person on your team is navigating the workday through experiences that you cannot fully see or understand.
Those five seconds often matter far more than the explanation you offer afterward about what you meant.
Curiosity Is More Useful Than Defensiveness
When someone tells us that something we said landed differently than we intended, we have another choice to make. We can spend the conversation defending our intent, or we can become curious about their experience. Defensiveness rarely changes how someone feels. Curiosity, on the other hand, creates room for learning, repair, and stronger relationships. It allows us to ask questions we might otherwise avoid and reminds us that understanding another person’s perspective is not an admission of wrongdoing. It’s part of being an effective leader and colleague.
If there’s one lesson I hope participants carry with them after harassment prevention training, it has very little to do with memorizing legal definitions. Those are important, but they’re not what changes workplace culture.
What changes culture is developing the habit of pausing long enough to consider how our words and actions might be experienced by someone else and remaining curious when that experience differs from our own. Those two practices extend far beyond harassment prevention. They shape how we give feedback, navigate conflict, build trust, and create workplaces where people genuinely feel respected.
Looking Beyond Compliance
Harassment prevention training is often viewed as a compliance requirement, something organizations complete because the law or their policies require it. In reality, the most valuable conversations rarely center on legal definitions alone. They happen when leaders and staff wrestle with the gray areas, ask difficult questions, and develop practical ways to navigate them together.
Those are the conversations we create space for at Ascend People because compliance is important, but creating workplaces where people feel safe, respected, and able to do their best work requires something deeper. If your organization is looking for harassment prevention training that goes beyond checking a box and helps your team think more intentionally about the way they work together, we’d welcome the opportunity to partner with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an uncomfortable workplace interaction automatically qualify as harassment?
No. An interaction can be inappropriate, unwelcome, or harmful without necessarily meeting the legal definition of workplace harassment. The specific conduct, context, frequency, severity, and applicable law can all matter. Organizations shouldn’t wait for behavior to cross a legal threshold before addressing concerns, though. Workplace expectations can and should set a higher standard for how people treat one another.
What should I do if someone tells me that something I said made them uncomfortable?
Resist the urge to immediately explain what you meant. Listen to what the person is telling you, ask questions if clarification would be helpful, and acknowledge their experience. You can clarify your intent when appropriate, but doing so shouldn’t require you to dismiss their reaction. Sometimes the most productive response is simply recognizing that your words landed differently than you expected and using that information to guide how you communicate moving forward.
How should leaders respond when employees are worried about saying the wrong thing?
Avoid responding with an ever-growing list of things employees can and cannot say. That approach can reinforce the very anxiety leaders are trying to reduce. Instead, give employees tools for navigating context, relationships, boundaries, and feedback. People are better equipped to make thoughtful decisions when they understand the principles behind workplace expectations rather than trying to memorize a list of prohibited phrases.
What makes harassment prevention training useful beyond meeting a compliance requirement?
Training becomes more useful when employees can apply what they’re learning to situations they might actually encounter at work. Legal definitions and reporting procedures matter, but so do opportunities to ask uncomfortable questions, work through ambiguous scenarios, and understand how organizational values translate into everyday behavior. Those conversations help teams leave training with more than information; they leave with a stronger shared understanding of how they want to work together.
